The Wicked Within

6. The Barber Shop

It peaks when the visions impale. It stabs, it slashes, it burns. It can happen to anyone: me, you, your parents, your neighbors. Anyone.

****

"Dad's pissed at you, ya know."

Finn looked up from his math homework. His sister was staring at him from halfway down the stairs. She began walking closer to the couch, where he lay in a heap.

"Really, Emma? I had no idea," He said the words with much more hatred than needed, but he thought nothing of it.

"Why would you do that, anyways? It's just...gross." Emma shuddered as she tucked a bundle of black hair behind her ears.

"I didn't!" Finn snapped. He was going to explode if someone questioned him again.

"Who did it?" She smirked. "A ghost? Was it the boogeyman?"

"Shut up, dumb ass! Damn!"

Emma busted out laughing as their father walked into the living room, car keys in ones hand, Dr Pepper in the other.

"Stop arguing," he scolded, but he didn't even look at Emma. He only glared at Finn.

"I didn't-" Finn started, but his dad cleared his throat.

"Your sister is getting a hair cut," the man twirled the keychain around his index finger. "You're coming with us."

Finn frowned. "Why?"

He knew the answer. No way would dad let him stay home alone. He didn't want any more rats in the house.

"I think you know why, Finn. From now on, I want you to be with another person at all times. In the same room."

Finn sighed. What else could he do? His dad wasn't about to change his mind. Apparently he figured grounding him just wouldn't do the trick this time- just like it hadn't last time and the time before that.

And so they walked out to the car, Emma smirking the whole time.

******

It was a simple barber shop. One room, with dirty tile floor that was overrun with cut off hair. Business was always slow there, so they only had a couple stations where the barbers worked.

Hair cuts here were cheaper than other places, and they never took too long. The Johnsons didn't really care about fashion, so they always just got a small trim.

Finn sat on an uncomfortable chair next to a window, bored. His dad just stared off into space, but he would occasionally look over at Finn in disappointment.

Finn hated the fact that his father didn't believe him about the rats, which is obvious. But he didn't hate it so much because he had gotten in trouble, he hated it because of the stress it added to his dad's life. As if being a single father and working insane hours to provide for his family wasn't enough. Finn wished he could prove he hadn't put the rats there, but he just couldn't think of anything.

Finn soon found him staring at the floor, too. Guilt was taking him over. It shouldn't have been- he hadn't done anything- but he couldn't help it. He was guilty that he wasn't smart enough to help his dad.

The amount of time Finn spent staring was cut off abruptly by a cloud of blackness moving through the air. Finn looked around, no one else seemed to have noticed it.

Under the chair his sister was in, hair that had been laying there for weeks began to move in a circular motion and travel to the center of the room. Finn's eyes widened at the scene, and even more so at the fact that the barber just kept cutting his sister's hair and his dad continued staring at nothingness.

The hair formed a mound in the center of the room, before shaking. Finn could feel the rooming moving with it from where he sat, staring at it in disbelief. It shook for just a matter of seconds before the strands of hair transformed- into roaches.

Finn felt his mouth droop open and his body go stiff. Roaches- the one thing he couldn't stand, the one creature that could really make his skin crawl.

His dad seemed to notice this. "Finn, what are you-"

Rats and roaches...

The voice erupted in Finn's mind. It was that girl's voice, from the office at school- that high pitched shrieking voice. He could tell his dad was still speaking, but he couldn't make out what he said.

Roaches and rats....

Finn began clawing at the arm of his chair with one hand, and rubbing his temples with the other.

Rats and Roaches, roaches and rats...

The abnormally large, black roaches began to disperse, leaving their jumbled mess to make homes in the wall.

What was even more terrifying than the roaches was what they had been hiding under that mess.

A head.

The head of Finn's mother.